Thus, Jones and Queen are certainly not the only engaged Buddhists to have recently sought to associate engaged Buddhism specifically with the challenging of the institutionalized and structural forms of suffering. For example, as Simmer-Brown tells us, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF), active since 1978, has recently “engaged in a ‘future process’ designed to refine strategies concerning institutional and ‘structural dukkha’ (suffering), its sources, and the actions and realizations that might lead to its relief” (2000: 78). Simmer-Brown then cites a 1997 BPF document that states:

We feel our particular responsibility is to address structural and social forms of suffering, oppression, and violence. These are not abstractions—war, racism, sexism, economic oppression, denial of human rights and social justice, and so many other ills cause great fear and suffering for all beings.

And she concludes:

In this analysis, BPF is expressing the core of its most current theoretical contribution to engaged Buddhism in America: that meditation practice and training the mind directly relate to diminishing our personal suffering, but that practitioners will not have fully addressed the suffering of the world if they do not address the social, economic, and political structures that legitimize violence and suffering. (2000: 80)

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This is a common Universal Vehicle contention. See, for example, Tsong Khapa’s fifteenth-century Tibetan discussion of this in Tantra in Tibet in the section entitled “All the Divisions [of scriptures, paths, or vehicles] Are Ultimately Branches of the Process of Fullest Enlightenment” (pp. 101-104). Therein he argues that everything that the Buddha taught is necessarily something that leads to Buddhahood, even if certain paths (for example, Individual Vehicle paths) are determined to have incomplete methods and are thus only a part of the process leading to Buddhahood. Return to text
Again, this is perhaps due in part to his greater familiarization with Theravādin forms of Buddhism (see note 27 above). Return to text
In the same anthology, José Cabezón discusses Christian liberation theology at great length, characterizing it in much the same way as Queen. However, Cabezón comes to a decidedly different conclusion about its consistency with Buddhist liberation movements (Cabezón, 1996: 311). Return to text
This should be fairly obvious. There are many sūtras in which the Buddha declares that everything he teaches is solely for liberating beings. See also note 30 above. Return to text
There are countless Mahāyāna treatises that discuss these two sides of bodhicitta. See for example Shantideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra, I: 15-16; verse 19 of Atisha’s Bodhi-patha-pradīpa; and so forth. Return to text
Lokayāna might perhaps better be translated as “Worldly Vehicle” to parallel the adjectival form “Global” and to suggest the focus on “worldly” (lokiya) liberation, which he asserts to be characteristic of liberation movements. Return to text
Another example that comes to mind was the attempt by Dol-po-pa (1292-1361) to legitimize his controversial gzhan stong interpretation of emptiness by invoking the language of “Councils” in one of his key texts on the subject (The Great Calculation of the Doctrine, Which Has the Significance of a Fourth Council). See Cyrus Stearns, The Buddha from Dol po and His Fourth Council of the Buddhist Doctrine. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington (Seattle), 1996. Return to text
In an excellent essay entitled “Tibetan Hermeneutics and the yana Controversy,” Nathan Katz demonstrates with abundant scriptural citations and penetrating analysis that “[e]xamples of this yana discourse could extend almost indefinitely, as virtually all Mahayana sutras have something to say on the subject.” (Katz, 1983: 113).
See also the extended discussions in Tantra in Tibet on this very subject (especially the discussions surrounding pp. 48, 55, 60, 92, 100-104). Therein, H. H. The Dalai Lama and Tsong Khapa argue that a difference in vehicles must be posited with respect to a difference in either wisdom or means (or effect/cause, or fruit/means). This analytical perspective is then used to elucidate why Hinayāna and Mahāyāna are different yānas, why Perfection and Mantra Vehicles are different yānas (within the Mahāyāna), but why, for example, Cittamātra and Madhyamaka are not different yānas, or why other partial sub-paths within a given yāna are not considered separate yānas, or why different paths and teachings geared toward different levels of disciples are not considered different yānas, and so on. Return to text
An attitude often revealed in the rhetoric of pop Zen, or as suggested by the title of Stephen Batchelor’s recent book, Buddhism Without Beliefs. Return to text